wriggle
Americanverb (used without object)
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to twist to and fro; writhe; squirm.
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to move along by twisting and turning the body, as a worm or snake.
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to make one's way by shifts or expedients (often followed byout ).
to wriggle out of a difficulty.
verb (used with object)
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to cause to wriggle.
to wriggle one's hips.
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to bring, get, make, etc., by wriggling.
to wriggle one's way through a narrow opening.
noun
verb
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to make or cause to make twisting movements
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(intr) to progress by twisting and turning
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(intr; foll by into or out of) to manoeuvre oneself by clever or devious means
wriggle out of an embarrassing situation
noun
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a wriggling movement or action
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a sinuous marking or course
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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wrigglernoun
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outwriggleverb (used with object)
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unwriggledadjective
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wrigglyadjective
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wrigglinglyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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wrigglesimple
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wrigglessimple
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have wriggledperfect
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has wriggledperfect
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am wrigglingprogressive
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are wrigglingprogressive
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is wrigglingprogressive
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have been wrigglingperfect progressive
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has been wrigglingperfect progressive
Past
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wriggledsimple
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had wriggledperfect
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was wrigglingprogressive
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were wrigglingprogressive
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had been wrigglingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of wriggle
1485–95; < Middle Low German wriggelen (cognate with Dutch wriggelen ), frequentative of *wriggen to twist, turn, akin to Old English wrīgian to twist; see wry
Explanation
To wriggle is to squirm and twist quickly. Think of how hard it is to hold a rambunctious puppy as it wriggles in your arms. Wriggle sounds a lot like wiggle, and the two words very nearly mean the same thing. There is a subtle difference, though: when you wriggle, you twist, turn, or bend as you move. When you wiggle, you make more of a back-and-forth motion. In fact, these two near-homonyms have completely different etymological sources. While wiggle stems from a Germanic root meaning "cradle," wriggle's root means "to turn or bend."
Vocabulary lists containing wriggle
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The rules allowed some wriggle room for Japan to ship weapons and components to key partners under joint-development programs deemed critical to Japan’s security, such as ballistic missile defense systems developed with the U.S.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 2026
Rather, she’s snared Millie in a trap while desperately trying to wriggle free from one herself.
From Salon ● Jan. 31, 2026
She expressed a desire for more wriggle room in the spreadsheets against her self-imposed fiscal rules – so-called "headroom".
From BBC ● Dec. 1, 2025
Matthew Umhofer, an attorney representing the Alliance, said the city paid big money to Gibson Dunn in a failed attempt to wriggle out of its legal obligations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2025
The fierce man seemed less dangerous now, but Matt still tried to wriggle away.
From "The House of the Scorpion" by Nancy Farmer
Teo wriggles down into the warmth of the duvet and snuggles into his mother.
From BBC ● Mar. 13, 2026
Darragh sticks out her tongue and wriggles it.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2023
When a nematode wriggles around a petri dish, what’s going on inside a tiny roundworm’s even tinier brain?
From Scientific American ● Aug. 21, 2023
The pain is in the waiting, for however long that may be, to see how "Strange New Worlds" wriggles the Enterprise out of this bind.
From Salon ● Aug. 11, 2023
He shuts down the saw and wriggles through the raw hole, up the ladder behind it, and into the garret.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Forty years ago in February, Jackson wriggled free of her father Joe Jackson’s stifling management with the release of “Control.”
From Salon ● Apr. 11, 2026
James Justin wriggled free inside the Forest area and when his shot was saved by Ortega, he had the presence of mind to square the rebound to Okafor, who slotted home from 10 yards.
From Barron's ● Feb. 6, 2026
She said she slipped his grip, wriggled free and got away.”
From Slate ● Jun. 30, 2025
Back in 1899, the legendary escape artist wriggled his way out of a straitjacket while dangling upside down, 45 feet above 4th Street.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2023
Despite that, he wriggled his eyebrows and smiled like he was the demigod of pickup artists.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
Cowboys would scrape the wriggling larvae from wounds on cattle and smear the now-banned paste over it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
"I have two very small children so things can get very stressful at home," says Stella while holding on tight to a wriggling baby Evie.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2025
When he got there, everything was fine, except that her baby, he discovered, was one of two wriggling black mounds covered by swarms of black flies, which were "devouring the remnants of the placental membranes."
From Salon ● Feb. 8, 2025
Other major landmarks of Mosul have also been restored - that wriggling minaret of al-Hadba, the Dominican al-Saa'a Convent and the complex of Al-Nouri mosque.
From BBC ● Feb. 5, 2025
“I wish I did have a hoe,” Nhamo added, wriggling her toes.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
